


Blame

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Declarations Of Love, F/M, Family, Forgiveness, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Kissing, Love Confessions, Recovery, Romance, Sappy, Self Confidence Issues, Unconventional Families, Unconventional Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 14:52:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6859501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Don't mind me.  Just creating way too tidy and Skoulson-y resolutions to S3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blame

Blame.

Her rational mind knows when they tell her “It’s not her fault”, that they’re right.

It _is_ Hive’s fault.

She never would’ve done those things without his influence directing her.

The problem is, she wanted it.  To belong.  She still does.

So she listens to their words, while on the inside, a part of her can’t accept that forgiveness.

He made her feel _so_ free.  Even while he was willing to drain her to the last drop of her blood.

The contradiction turns her stomach.  The way he used her.  She wishes she felt anger, rage. 

And then she remembers the way she used her powers to hurt people when her emotions were given free reign.

Mack and the Director.  Fitz. And May. She can barely look at Lincoln in the eyes, even though he said he understands.

At least Jemma still keeps reminding her what this is.  An addiction.  It makes it easier to have a name for it.

Hive played on something she’s wanted her entire life.  Even though she knows it’s perfectly scientific, as Jemma said, it doesn’t take away the _feeling_ of it.

Or the pressure in her chest, the panic, knowing that feeling was never real, at all.

That everything she’s found here was just a fantasy by comparison.

 

#

She's not sure what he wants from her, only that she knows that right now, it feels like too much.

He should understand her, support her. She wants to do that for him, like she did before.

But, he wants her to give him _more_ , and there's nothing left.  She tries to put it to words. What he sees is her rejecting him again.  Choosing SHIELD over them.

So many of the things she said under Hive’s influence were true.  She felt guilty using him.  Seeing his feelings for her as a weakness.

Lincoln is not Ward, but Hive knew.  Like Ward knew when he tried to mess with her head.

These…patterns, and her at the center of it.

It's easier to go back to a routine. Updating their security protocols so she can't do this _ever_ again to the team.

She stays up late working on it, and he doesn't see that she's just trying to help, in the only way she can now.

It's not like she wants to sit in the common area, to watch people look at her sideways while she works, and has Fitz cross-check and triple-check everything.

She feels safer out here in the open, though, instead of cornered.

 

#

“You have to stop blaming yourself.”

Pretty rich, coming from her, is what she wants to say.

Jemma told her she has to pay attention to her body, and not just her mind, and so she’s back to her routine of morning training with May.

And also she might be tired of seeing her drag around the base from lack of sleep and that this will help.

“Daisy.”

She knows that this is important, but she doesn’t have the energy for it.

May fixes a look on her, then fixes her concentration by taking her right down to the mats.

As she catches her breath, she looks up at May’s stern expression, kind of glad that someone’s not being so gentle with her.

“SHIELD?  It’s not family, but it’s pretty close.”

She hovers over her, waiting for her to crack, and Daisy laughs, for the first time in days, and then it turns into tears.

“Don’t cry,” May says, looking away for a moment, then talking at her through clenched teeth. “You’re gonna make me cry.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, laughing again, almost uncontrollably. “I just really needed to hear that.”

She wipes away a tear that slides down May’s nose, as she raises her head to make sure that no more will be forthcoming.

“You're going down,” Daisy tells her, teasingly, swallowing the lump in her throat.

“Oh, really?” May says with a cocky expression. “Let's see what you've got.”

She flips May over, onto her back, feels her solid beneath her.

Maybe she lets her this time, but, this is good.

 

#

Mack apologized to her, first, actually.

He said that he lost faith in their team, and that Coulson knew they would get her back.

How, he wasn’t sure (she’s sure he thinks it’s about alien stuff, but she doesn’t press him), only that Coulson just knew.

Elena helped him along the way. She’s so grateful Elena has been here in her place, when she failed him, and her team.

“You gonna be okay when we go up against Hive?” he asks as he looks over the weapons inventory.

“I’m not sure,” she tells him, honestly, trying to help out but not really being of much help.

“Hearing you say that is good,” he says with a small smile.  “I know you’ll do whatever it takes to get there.”

She feels a little less tired, that Mack still wants to be her partner, and share in her burdens, not pretend they don’t exist.

Even after what she did to him, he’s not holding on to it, using it against her.

“I’m second-guessing a lot,” she admits more, because it feels like a relief.

“Just be careful,” he tells her. “About what voices you decide to listen to.  You can get caught up in fear, convince yourself you’re doing the right thing.  I know about that.”

That’s how they met, after all.  His SHIELD versus theirs.

So much has changed.

 

#

He can tell by the way she answers (or doesn’t answer, not really) that Daisy is being accommodating.

Too afraid to let herself be angry

“I’m the one who brought Hive back.”

She looks up at him slowly from her seat across from his desk, and frowns.

This is part of her evaluation before she’s cleared to go back in the field.

This is what you do with agents like her, she’s read the procedures to prepare herself for what’s ahead.

What is he getting at with that?  That she should blame him instead?

“I’m giving you your team back,” he says casually, then signs a file folder in front of him and closes it.

“What?” she answers incredulously, sitting up straighter, gripping the arms of the chair.  “You can’t-“

“Yes I can,” he nods, leaning forward across the desk, grasping his hands together calmly.

She starts to feel that panicked feeling, the one that comes to her late every night.  That something isn’t right.

“This isn’t like before,” she says, standing up. “I don’t just get to walk away from this.”

“If you want to walk, walk,” he says, in that cool Director voice she sometimes hates. “If you want to stay, though, this is how I need you.”

This is how he needs her, she thinks, as she looks him over.

No, this is what he does.  Every time.

“Don’t give me something you won’t give yourself.  Not anymore.”

His eyes go from narrow to huge, in a matter of seconds, as she locks eyes with him.

There it is, just below the surface.  Even if she doesn’t know herself right now, she still knows him.

“Sir,” she adds, looking away, then turning her back on him as she leaves the office.

 

#

There’s a knock on the door, the night before they execute their plan, and she just can’t now.

It’s softer than normal, because he probably feels guilty, but he keeps knocking.

She wants to yell “Go away!” like she’s a teenager, and instead gets up and swings the door open.

It’s the Director, with his fist raised, like he was about to knock again.

“Oh.” The realization that it’s not who she thought it was. That it’s the last person she’d expected.  He has it at the same time as her, and looks up and down the hall, like they could be interrupted at any moment, or that he’s possibly done something wrong.

“Sir?”

“You were right. Daisy.”

Daisy.  Not Agent Johnson. She expected that even less, not sure what to do with it, except that she wants to hear more.

“Okay.”

She holds the door open wider as an invitation, and he follows her inside as she shuts the door behind them both.

Now that they’re alone, he seems to be struggling with words even more, so she asks him if he wants to sit.

He does, on the edge of her bed, still not quite meeting her eyes.

“None of this would have happened to you, if you hadn’t joined SHIELD,” he begins.

She doesn’t answer him right away, so that eventually, he’s forced to look up at her to get a read on her reaction.

Her arms are already crossed.  “I was looking for SHIELD on my own, you know,” she reminds him. ”I found you.”

“I know.  It’s what I tell myself sometimes. If you hadn’t met… _me_ ,” he amends.

“If you hadn’t met _me_ ,” she explains, sitting down next to him.  “You would still have your hand.”

Reaching out, she takes the prosthetic between hers, and brushes her fingers over it. He’s going to need surgery on his leg, too.  Also her fault.

“That wasn’t your faul-“ he stops himself, as she feels her face get flushed.

“It was because of me,” she insists. Letting out a breath, she releases his hand, draws back a little.

“I _could_ leave SHIELD.  I _could_ walk away from it.”

His eyes are wide again, like they were this afternoon in his office, like he’s panicking internally at this new information.

“Hive said something…annoying to me.  That I like bad boys.” She rolls her eyes a little at hearing herself say it out loud. “Do you think that’s true?”

He looks even more concerned now, like his mind knows she’s crossing some line for them, and his heart is still stuck someplace else.

“You told me that yourself.”  He breathes out, like knowing her puts things into place for him.

She did.  When he was reviewing all the ways Ward had hurt them with the team, using it to fuel his determination to end it.

“I realized that, it’s easier,” she tells him. “Because it’s not that hard to walk away.  I can just blame myself.”

He’s thinking it over, and she can only imagine what’s going on in that head of his.

“When did you realize this?” he finally asks, arriving at this, and she smiles a little, because he worked it out, or rather, he followed her.

“When Lincoln said that I would never walk away…from you.”

 

#

She wants to help, but mostly she’s just talking, while Polly finishes up the dishes.

“I wish I could do more,” the woman says. “To thank you both.”

This is more than enough, she thinks, looking at Phil pulling Robin up onto his lap after she hands a book over to him.

They’re sitting out under a shade tree just past the kitchen window, and it takes a moment for him to get his leg all the way underneath him.  It’s still healing from the surgery.

Once he’s settled, though, he smiles, and opens the book and starts to read.

“What a puzzle you both are,” Polly smiles, craning her neck to peer out the window with her.  “How did you two meet?”

“I infiltrated his organization, to find out where I came from. Then he decided he liked me and offered me a job. He would probably tell it differently,” she smiles.  “That he sucked me into a world of espionage.”

“You found each other.”

She sighs. “We still are.”

 

#

He’s very quiet on the car ride home.

This is giving her déjà vu, with them dropping Robin and her mother off at the safehouse, her driving Lola back to the base.

Just how they began.

They’re at a stop light now that they’ve made it back to the city, and Daisy is tapping her foot impatiently waiting on the light, with her elbow propped on Lola’s window.

“Do you want to fly her?” he asks out of nowhere. “I’ve never shown you how.”

“Sure,” she answers, gripping the steering wheel a little tighter.

When the light changes, she pushes the gas a little harder than normal, ready to get out of the boundaries of the city.

They stop under a tree for the shade and he gets out of the passenger side, and leans down over the driver’s seat with the door open, explaining all the controls to her.

She doesn’t know why it’s this moment, but she finds herself looking up at him, listening to the cadence of his voice, studying the contours of his face, his blue eyes, the open vee of his shirt.

So when he pauses, suddenly curious and distracted by her eyes on him, she reaches up to him with her hand and then brings their lips together.

He breathes against her, deeply, and then draws her up out of the seat by an elbow, out of the car, then presses her up against Lola’s side, kissing her back like she’s an answer to every doubt.

“I love you,” he tells her, when their mouths part, as he caresses the line of her neck.  Like it’s a confession, still not enough. “I’m in love with you.”

She lets him lift her to sit on Lola and then pulls him against her, wanting to show him, rather than say it, as he settles between her legs and groans into her mouth, slips his tongue against hers.

That’s when she catches herself, slowing things down.

“Do we have to get back to SHIELD right away?” she asks, as her fingers follow the buttons along his shirt.

“No,” he smiles, pushing her hair back from her face. “SHIELD can wait.”

“Then you can show me how to fly?” she teases, tracing her index against his lips.

“I can try,” he says with a smirk.


End file.
